The relationship boiled over on Labor Day 2007, when Frey's son had planned to join the family at a festival but then Ryndak called and insisted the two get together for basketball practice, recalled the teen's mother, Julie Frey.

Her son told her later that he became aggravated with Ryndak and finally had the coach drive him home. Ryndak proceeded to text him throughout the night, Julie Frey said.

The next day, Frey said, Ryndak made a distraught phone call to her son, who "was very upset. He said, 'Mom, you have to do something, he's coming over.'"

When Ryndak arrived, Frey, a nurse, tried to talk to him in the yard.

"He proceeded to follow me into my house," said Frey, adding that she was looking for her son. She didn't know it, but he had run out and hopped a fence to avoid the coach, she said.

Ryndak "started to go to the different bedrooms, looking," Frey said. "I kept myself calm and got him out of here. It was just very strange."

Her husband came home as Ryndak left. Stephen Frey warned the coach not to come back.

The family had already decided "enough is enough" and moved their son to a private Catholic school for his junior year, he said. Their son has since assured his parents that Ryndak never touched him, but the ordeal left him emotionally exhausted, Julie Frey said.

In fall 2007, Ryndak began his new job as head basketball coach at Johnsburg High.

Later, when Johnsburg police started to check into parents' complaints about Ryndak, an officer called several contacts from the Norridge area.

"They related that they were not happy about the overall ability of Matt to become controlling over the players' lives," Johnsburg Officer Todd Colander wrote in a police report. "They related it became unhealthy for their sons. Several players were transferred to other schools and others quit playing because of these kind of coaching traits."

Not criminal

Initially, Johnsburg basketball boosters welcomed Ryndak. Dixon, the Johnsburg parent who was originally one of Ryndak's key supporters, said Ryndak soon started pressuring him to contact Stephen Frey and persuade him to move his son to Johnsburg.

"He said, 'We need this kid (on the team),'" said Dixon, who later learned why Frey never returned his calls.

In fall 2007, Mary Lou and Bob Hutchinson's son, also named Bob, began playing basketball for Ryndak in Johnsburg.

At 16, the high school junior thought it was odd that Ryndak texted him so often. Ryndak, said the younger Bob Hutchinson, gave him mixed messages by praising his athletic performance but keeping him on the sidelines most games.

Most confusing was the night that Ryndak called about 11 p.m. and started asking him about puberty and, specifically, the growth of his body hair, Hutchinson said.

"I said, 'Like armpits?'" recalled Hutchinson, now 20 and a junior at Southern Illinois University. "He said, 'How much pubic hair do you have?' He was asking if it came in in spurts or all at once. I was thinking, 'This is getting a little weird.' I ended the conversation right after that."

Over the next few days, Hutchinson asked other players if they'd had the same experience and found out his conversation with Ryndak "wasn't as weird as the questions they were getting."

Hutchinson was struggling with his grades at the time, and his parents told the coach that he would have to quit the team. Ryndak persuaded them to leave Hutchinson on the team, saying that as a coach he could help him build his confidence, Mary Lou Hutchinson said. Instead, Ryndak rarely played him and then kicked him off the team after he missed several practices called at the last minute, she said.

But Hutchinson's son said Ryndak continued to try to reach him by promising he could line him up with a prestigious baseball scholarship.

The coach was communicating with Dixon's son too. In fall 2007, Dixon came home one day to find his son distraught. He had thrown his cellphone to the floor and said, "I can't take it anymore." Dixon, realizing the extent of the nonstop texts from the coach, called the Hutchinsons to compare notes.

They learned that the texts ranged from praise for a player's performance to personal questions about sexual maturity, with Ryndak telling students he could predict how tall they would grow by their pubic hair growth, according to a police report.

The two families began working together, reporting their concerns to school officials and police in the summer of 2008.

"I met with the (athletic director) three times, and each time it got a little more heated," Mary Lou Hutchinson said.

But each time they complained, the families said, they were told the coach's behavior did not rise to the level of criminal behavior, said Hutchinson, who met with police three times and talked to the police chief several other times.